She is the most powerful woman on the planet with two legs and 4 letters.

She is in a word - unforgettable. She is the many but one and only.

Her new single “It’s A Woman’s World” is destined to become a mainstay anthem for Womankind just as her and Sonny’s ”I Got You Babe“ has arguably won out as the definitive pop love song of the ’60s. It would be wrong to call her current surge of notoriety with recent appearances on TV and clubs as well as a thrilling new studio album “Closer To The Truth”, scheduled to be released September 24th, 2013 on Warner Bros. Records, a ”comeback“ because she never really goes away. Cher’s been…well Cher… for half a century…And the beat goes on. ”I’m a part of history whether people want to take it seriously or not."

She sings. She acts. She directs. She writes. She’s a political activist. She’s a philanthropist. She mothers. She is the only living artist who has had a number one song every decade since the 60s when she and her then partner Sonny Bono were the ones to knock the Beatles out of first place on the charts in 1964. She is relentless. “Do you think I would have lasted 48 years if I really gave a flying f-k what people think? I pull up my big girl G-string, follow my path, and move on.”

You might argue that Madonna is still more globally famous – that would only be true if Madonna keeps doing what she has at the same pace for another two decades. That would be 2034. But Cher doesn’t take her place in history or musical expression so seriously that she didn’t gladly join in performing “I Got You Babe” live and as an animated character in “Beavis and Butthead.” “Until you’re ready to look foolish, you’ll never have the possibility of being great.”

She is most famous probably for seducing a battleship of sailors and the rest of the world with her song, “If I Could Turn Back Time.” with scanty outfit that had the masts upright and flags waving.(Note: She did.) Now Cher has passed into that final free frontier beyond “Survivor” along with the likes of Keith Richards and Tina Turner where statesmanship and undeniable talent keep any ill-will or natural jealousy at bay. “Some years I’m the coolest thing that ever happened, and the next year everyone’s so over me."

Early indications appear to confirm that no one’s going to be over Cher in 2014 especially with the release of her hotly anticipated first studio album in over a decade “Closer to the Truth”. Her distinctive contralto voice remains an inspiring instrument to telegraph whatever emotions the songs require. A heartfelt ballad by Pink, “Lie to Me”, an unashamed dance-floor extravaganza “Take It Like A Man” or poignant anthem to 9/11 “Sirens” – all beautifully executed parts of her latest masterpiece.

Cher has been called an Icon indicating that she transcends fads and fashions of the day. Yet she is a glowing body moving through real time with so many masks, costumes, disguises, postures and expression. Her cool personality and taste for individuality manifested early when she was suspended from 8th Grade for wearing sunglasses in class. Though she has been a singular influence on many designers and the fashion world regularly, she says, “I wear my clothes, my clothes don’t wear me.”

She is the woman who launched a thousand drag queens. [On her Vegas show] “I’m standing backstage frightened out of my mind saying ‘I can’t do this.’ Then my choreographer tells me, ”If God didn’t want you to do this, he wouldn’t have looked down on your cradle and said, “SEQUINS.”

Like the heroine story teller of the Arabian Nights, Cherherazod saves her own life daily by spellbinding talent, distractions, songs, mimes, jokes, characters that her audience embrace. At once lovable and most often hilariously funny. She is up there with Sophie Tucker, Lucille Ball and Mae West. “Living your life the way you want to live it is the most important thing, so if you have to pay small prices along the way, it’s not important.”

When she was young at 4 she wanted to be an animated character. Cinderella to be exact. Lo and behold the child’s dream came true. “I was always Cher before people got hip to what that meant.” The child is now a woman. She is the strong daughter of a strong mother. A strong mother to luminous and complicated children. And various a vamp, a princess, a harpy, a biker chick, a witch, a waif, a waitress and somehow is always miraculously herself in each incarnation. A queen. A force of nature with a smile – and sometimes a play whip: Perhaps an unlikely Everywoman Eve in her youth, she proudly owns up to all incarnations. “God made woman beautiful and foolish; beautiful, that man might love her; and foolish, that she might love him”

Oscar, Emmy, Golden Globe and Grammy winner, even the greatest actress of this era, Meryl Streep has said of Cher: “She comes in the room and owns the place, puts everyone at ease. She’s good news.”

As she likes to put it playfully at the end of one of her sizzling performances: “Top that, you bitches.”

Her stage presence always seems natural and fun loving with a campy cast. You never get the feeling somebody had to push her on stage. She decided at 4 she wanted to be famous so the stage is her dream come true. “If you are going to wait for someone to encourage you to do something, you just better give it up.”

Perhaps the core secret of her ongoing appeal is her wicked self-deprecating wit that telegraphs that she doesn’t take her fame or importance too seriously. She wears it with a mixture of glitz and humility and that builds good will for the inevitable times of failure or popularity of even the most beloved entertainers when either for fate for fashion they go into a skid and sometimes a crash and suffers banishment and obscurity. Not Cher. “For better or worse, I never plan my life. I focus on today. I love spontaneity. That is what has put me in some strange and wonderful places in my life.”

Her take on men can be summed up in two sentences: “A girl can wait for the right man to come along, but in the meantime that still doesn’t mean she can’t have a wonderful time with all the wrong ones.” “You can take everything I know about men and put it on the head of a pin, and still have room left for The Lord’s Prayer.”

Cher has also learned the wisdom of the touring band that after a while has done everything and heard about the rest in terms of loving, winning and losing. She now is also one to share her wisdom disguised as banter and Twitter wit.

“I’ve been rich. I’ve been poor. Rich is better. I’ve been young. I’ve been old. Young is better.“ ”I have done so much more than I thought I would do And yet I am not finished."

And lucky for us, she’s got lots more to say and sing and give to the world. And you can’t get “Closer to the Truth” than that.